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Royalty in combat and media action
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The argument was made that Drudge leaking the info endangered him and other members of his unit. Accepting that at some point in time there was x increased endangerment caused by Drudge leaking the story, Harry bears some responsibility for it since any reasonable person would expect at some time the story to leak. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to let Drudge off the hook. I think the real outrage over this is that the media (Drudge) made it impossible for Harry to do a courageous and honorable thing. I think that sometimes that is the price of celebrity.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Given the speed with which they were capable of getting Harry out, I think it's also difficult to argue that Drudge put anyone's life in serious danger. I mean, it was still a complete shitbag thing to do, but what do you expect from Drudge?
When he was attached to a unit, he bent over and drew out a map of the surrounding area and the forces arrayed there and so on. Basically telling anyone watching TV exactly where the unit he was with was.
There's an AWESOME bit by Stephen Colbert on it(04/01/2003). Look it up on the Daily Show site*.
*which suddenly no longer works for Canadians. Or, at least, this Canadian. Fuckers.
This is pretty much where I'm at at this point. Notwithstanding my irrational hatred of the reptile alien royal family.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaXgSaRs5yw
The one caveat is if Drudge knew specifically that protocol would demand that he be removed from the front lines and was specifically working for that result. In that case he's either a traitor (by hindering allied military operations) or just a collossal asshole.
Okay, yes I think that's true.
I also personally think that the 'escalation in danger' for troops in Helmand argument is a bit weak (yes, I know I used it, was being lazy) or at best unproven. Without some kind of real pinpoint on what job he was doing or his position, this would require a massive provincial escalation of Taliban attacks...which if they were capable of, they would be doing anyway. And as soon as it was reported, he was obviously going to be recalled. So in the short-term, yes it's probably unfair to accuse Drudge of endangering lives. But he's still breaking a very basic principle that the media don't breach OPSEC.
On the other hand, as soon as knowledge gets out that Harry is deployed, clearly the enemy might start turning int towards working out where he is and trying something; and I'm not privy to the Army int briefings for Helmand (or indeed when they discussed deploying him in Iraq) which might bring up all sorts of other issues or specific threats.
At the very least, it's allowed the other 170 blokes on that flight some definite shore leave. We're ridiculously stretched for transport aircraft at the moment, and an available next-day flight out of Afghan is not a regular occurance - they most likely retasked that Herc. Plenty of soldiers with low priority seats (ie leave) don't ever get out of theatre.
What idiocy.
So fighting to keep an oppressive, theocratic regime from terrorizing the lives of Afganis, namely the Taliban, is bad because the Taliban are Muslims and we're killing muslims?
That's like saying we should have let the Serbs do whatever they want, kill, rape, and engage in ethnic cleansing because they're by and large Christian orthodox. And we don't want to be killing Chrsitians, now do we?
There's nothing wrong with fighting bad people, of any race, religion, or ideology.
Margaret Thatcher
Woosh! Congratulations, the point went right over your head. Nice job.
Given that the point was "ololz silly royals" I'm not sure missing it constitutes missing much.
Um. Alright?